E. L. Shen is a writer and editor living in New York City. Her debut middle-grade novel, The Comeback (Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers) is a Junior Library Guild Selection, received two starred reviews, and was praised for its “fast-paced prose, big emotions, and authentic dialogue” in The New York Times. Her forthcoming young adult novel, The Queens of New York (Quill Tree Books) was won in a six-figure preempt and is scheduled to publish in Summer 2023.
Told from
multiple points of view, this story details the horrific internment of fourteen
Japanese American teenagers and their families during the height of World War
II. The history of Japanese internment camps is often glazed over in Social
Studies classes in favor of celebrating America’s successes in the war, but I
was taken by Traci’s unflinching portrait of the teenagers’ lives and choices
as they grapple with how to be Asian American in a world that refuses to
acknowledge their citizenship and identities.
Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps. In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.
This is Don’s second short story collection, and the thing I’ve always adored about him is his attention to detail.
Reading him, you instantly know he does his research, especially when it comes to his characters’ jobs. The second story here is “Commis,” and it’s about a cook. After I came to the last page, I felt like I could work at a restaurant. This level of specificity is all over The Partition, as it was in his first collection Yellow, published more than two decades ago.
This is a less hopeful, more mature work than his debut, and it’s all the richer for it.
A thrilling new story collection from acclaimed writer Don Lee exploring Asian American identity, spanning decades and continents
"Don Lee is one of those masterful storytellers who is both classic and modern, who can transport you into any setting, with any character." —The TODAY Show, recommended by author Weike Wang
"The organizing conceit of all [Lee’s] fiction has remained consistent: Asian Americans are not monoliths . . . Lee narrates from a collective perspective, his stories offering a kaleidoscopic vision of all the ways it feels to be yellow." —New York Times Book Review
I grew up in Ottawa, Canada, a child of immigrant parents, and I’ve always been curious about other cultures and far-off places. Moving to Hong Kong gave me the chance to explore my Chinese cultural roots and learn the language. I spent 14 very happy years in Hong Kong and my experiences there were the inspiration for my middle-grade debut, The Not-So-Uniform Life of Holly-Mei. Like the character Holly-Mei, I love dumplings, bubble tea, and field hockey. The books I chose are ones that reflect my experience of being born and raised in a new world.
This story made me reflect on and appreciate the power of names. Twelve-year-old Meilan moves with her family from Boston’s Chinatown to Redbud, Ohio for a fresh start. When the principal insists on changing her name to Melanie, she starts to question her name and its meaning. Her nickname, Lan, has many meanings in Chinese and she tries to fit into all of them: basket – to carry the burden of her family’s stress; blue – to reflect her mood; and mist – to be invisible at school; before cherishing her name’s true meaning: beautiful orchid.
"The little girl I was would have been thrilled to encounter Meilan... having found a character who embraces the complexity of being both Chinese and American, I would have been able to echo her words: 'I am not alone.'" -New York Times Book Review by Jean Kwok
A family feud before the start of seventh grade propels Meilan from Boston's Chinatown to rural Ohio, where she must tap into her inner strength and sense of justice to make a new place for herself in this resonant debut.
Meilan Hua's world is made up of a few key ingredients: her family's…
"A charming, intriguingly plotted novel."-Washington Post
Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly's Hello, Universe is a funny and poignant neighborhood story about unexpected friendships.
Told from four intertwining points of view-two boys and two girls-the novel celebrates bravery, being different, and finding your inner bayani (hero). "Readers will be instantly engrossed in this relatable neighborhood adventure and its eclectic cast of misfits."-Booklist
In one day, four lives weave together in unexpected ways. Virgil Salinas is shy and kindhearted and feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, is smart, brave, and…
I’m the author of the short story collection I Meant It Once. I often say it’s a book about being a mess in your twenties, but to speak more personally, writing it was a necessity, a way to make sense of both the intensity and mundanity of my own experiences. I love a book where you can palpably feel the author working to make sense of their own life, through language—and, in turn, sorting out what it is for any of us to be a person. Books like these are essential reading when life feels thorny, beautiful, and impossible to make sense of, and all you can do is try to write it down.
The narrator of Chang’s debut novel keeps referencing this project she’s working on, and it just might be the book we’re reading.
The novel brilliantly messes around in the gray area between life and art, author and narrator, truth and fiction—as our narrator, adrift in a new town after a cross-country move, writes as a way to make sense of where she’s been and where she’s going.
“Startlingly original and deeply moving.... Chang here establishes herself as one of the most important of the new generation of American writers.” — George Saunders
A Recommended Book From Buzzfeed * TIME * USA Today * NPR * Vanity Fair * The Washington Post * New York Magazine * O, the Oprah Magazine * Parade * Wired * Electric Literature * The Millions * San Antonio Express-News * Domino * Kirkus
A wry, tender portrait of a young woman—finally free to decide her own path, but unsure if she knows herself well enough to choose wisely—from a captivating new literary…
Born in the Philippines and raised in the US from the age of 4, Renee didn't see the stories of her culture reflected in books until she was a freshman in college at UC Berkeley. Renee wrote her first novel, The Hour of Daydreams, which was inspired by the ghost stories her family told. It received the inaugural Institute for Immigration Research New American Voices Finalist award. Her children’s book One Hundred Percent Me is the book she wishes she could’ve read to her own daughters.With her latest book, The ABCs of Asian American History, Renee hopes young readers will celebrate the vast contributions of Asian Americans to US culture, politics, arts, and society.
This book reveals a fascinating picture of mothers from China traveling to the US to give birth on American soil.
Factory worker Scarlett is one such mother, and her journey to safety, friendship, motherhood, and love, told with Hua’s impeccable gift for storytelling, is an adventure you will cheer for.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In a powerful debut about modern-day motherhood, immigration, and identity, a pregnant Chinese woman stakes a claim to the American dream in California.
“Utterly absorbing.”—Celeste Ng • “A marvel of a first novel.”—O: The Oprah Magazine • “The most eye-opening literary adventure of the year.”—Entertainment Weekly
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • Real Simple
Holed up with other mothers-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory and fell in love with the…
For as long as I can remember, I’ve yearned to be part of a BFF-ship, like Anne Shirley-Cuthbert searching for her Diana Barry or Nancy Drew seeking her crewmates Bess and George. As I grew, I realized what I really wanted was to be part of something bigger than myself, working toward a common goal and solving problems bravely and creatively. In any given role, I’ve sought to find the best possible team for the job. Now that I’m a full-time creator, I’ve continued to prioritize people and collaborative practice over any given outcome. Sometimes, we win, sometimes we learn. But the important thing is that we try/learn together.
One of my favorite things about sports (and sports stories) for kids—and especially AFAB, queer, and nonbinary kids—is how they teach us to unapologetically take up space. To own our lanes (in derby speak) and support each other physically and emotionally through life’s trials.
As I learned through joining the roller derby community later in life, belonging to a team isn’t just about being “recruited” or “making it” past tryouts. It’s also about learning how to belong in your own skin, rely on your own strengths, and become an indispensable member of your community.
This story perfectly encompasses these lessons in a fun and visual way. I stan!
A graphic novel about friendship, belonging and feeling comfortable in your own skin! Trying out for middle school cheerleader means: performing in the giant school gym, with the whole school watching, and risking total humiliation. If Christina can make it through this, she can make it through anything.
As one of the only Asian American kids in her small Texas town, Christina just wants to fit in. Luckily, her best friend, Megan, who is Iranian American, can totally relate. The two girls have always been inseparable and relish creating elaborate fantasy worlds together.
In 2016, I started thinking about art’s power to unite diverse people. The recent presidential election coincided with a sharp spike in anti-immigrant rhetoric, but artists, musicians, creatives, and performers were fierce defenders of the value of cultural difference. In my own life, I’ve always found inspiration and solace from creative practice. For years now, I’ve been part of an eclectic friend group I first met in painting class. The joy art brings to my life also made me wonder who gets credit and what even constitutes “art.” Is an expensive oil painting really worth more than a comic book, if someone loves the comic book just as much?
Among U.S. immigrants and racially and culturally marginalized peoples, Asian Americans have a particularly complicated history in our national culture. Chinese and other ethnic Asians are still less than 7% percent of the U.S., a modicum at least partly conditioned by Chinese Exclusion, a federal law that for more than sixty years (from 1882-1943) severely restricted ethnic Asians from immigrating to and settling within the U.S.
But just as Neil Gabler and Lin-Manuel Miranda emphasize the migrants and racial-ethnic minorities at the core of America’s founding myths, novelist Lisa See details an eclectic group of artists, movie stars, and other creatives who gathered in Los Angeles Chinatown since the 1930s. This multimedia, multicultural milieu included both whites and ethnic Asians and spanned Hollywood, fine art, and commercial design.
Now a classic Asian American history, See's bestselling 1995 family history documents the enduring impact of the Chinatown residents and creatives who…
Out of the stories heard in her childhood in Los Angeles's Chinatown and years of research, See has constructed this sweeping chronicle of her Chinese-American family, a work that takes in stories of racism and romance, entrepreneurial genius and domestic heartache, secret marriages and sibling rivalries, in a powerful history of two cultures meeting in a new world. 82 photos.
Every author writing about race and tax in the United States uses my article with William Whitford, “A Black Critique of the Internal Revenue Code.” Using census data, Bill and I showed that blacks and whites who earn the same income, live in the same geographic areas, have the same education and marital status, pay different amounts of federal income tax because of the race and wealth disparities outlined in Race and Wealth Disparities: A Multidisciplinary Discourse edited by Beverly Moran.
I have used this textbook for over ten years. It groups Supreme Court decisions and other writings by Hispanics, Native Americans, Blacks, and Asians in a way that allows students to understand how doctrine shifts over almost three hundred years of jurisprudence. The text gently gets students to expand their knowledge base and confront what they learned (or did not learn) in other courses. I enjoy this textbook every time that I use it.
This casebook presents interdisciplinary, critical perspectives on race and racism and covers the roles of law and history in shaping the meanings of race in the United States. Updates the second edition with new material on: President Obama's election and "post-racialism"; important studies of implicit bias; the Voting Rights Act and allegedly race-neutral restrictions on voting; recurring violence against and harassment of Latino immigrants; book-banning in Arizona; and demographic changes and their implications. Includes new cases such as Shelby County v. Holder and Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, current statistics, and updated references. Features rich historical treatment of…
Born in the Philippines and raised in the US from the age of 4, Renee didn't see the stories of her culture reflected in books until she was a freshman in college at UC Berkeley. Renee wrote her first novel, The Hour of Daydreams, which was inspired by the ghost stories her family told. It received the inaugural Institute for Immigration Research New American Voices Finalist award. Her children’s book One Hundred Percent Me is the book she wishes she could’ve read to her own daughters.With her latest book, The ABCs of Asian American History, Renee hopes young readers will celebrate the vast contributions of Asian Americans to US culture, politics, arts, and society.
This young adult novel is one adults too will enjoy.
Told from the lens of a Filipino American teenager who returns to his home country to investigate his cousin’s disappearance, Patron Saints of Nothing provides insightful commentary on the Philippine drug war carried out by the Duterte administration.
This is a complex, multilayered story about family, loss, and forgiveness.
"Brilliant, honest, and equal parts heartbreaking and soul-healing." --Laurie Halse Anderson, author of SHOUT
"A singular voice in the world of literature." --Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down
A powerful coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder.
Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs,…
